health economics

Led by Professor Garry Barton of the University of East Anglia, the theme provides support to other themes of CLAHRC East of England e.g. in relation to assessing the costs and benefits of alternative treatments. It also leads projects which focus on the application and development of the methods of economic evaluation.

Health care budgets are limited and thus choices have to be made about which treatment options to provide and which not to provide. An economic evaluation is often undertaken to inform this decision, where the costs and benefits of alternative treatments are compared in order to assess which represents best value for money. Undertaking the proposed research will enable us to be more certain about the costs and benefits associated with particular health care treatments. This information will increase our confidence as to the cost-effectiveness of these health care interventions. Implementation of this research will also ensure that greater benefits are achieved from scarce health care resources.

Short term objectives:

To estimate the cost-effectiveness of a particular treatment option (economic evaluation).

To estimate the value of undertaking further research to provide further evidence as to whether a particular intervention constitutes value for money (value of information analysis).

To conduct a systematic review of published economic evaluations within a particular treatment area. The data will subsequently be incorporated into an economic model which provides estimates of cost-effectiveness. (research synthesis with economic modelling)

Long term objectives:

To replicate the first three aforementioned short-term objectives (cost-effectiveness, value of future research and systematic review of economic evaluations) with regard to other treatment options.

The specific treatment options will be identified after work with other themes within the CLAHRC.

To use the findings from the aforementioned short-term objectives to inform the design of the economic component of research applications which are submitted to the NIHR for funding

To ensure the local implementation of research findings

Relevance to the health of patients and the public

Health care budgets are limited and thus choices have to be made about which treatment options to pro-vide and which not to provide. An economic evaluation is often undertaken to inform this decision, where the costs and benefits of alternative treatments are compared to assess which represents best value for money. Undertaking the above proposed research will enable one to be more certain about the costs and benefits associated with particular health care treatments. This information will increase our confidence as to the cost-effectiveness of these health care interventions. Implementation of this research will also en-sure that greater benefits are achieved from scarce health care resources.